Method and apparatus for improved information visualization

ABSTRACT

An information handling system with a display device, and a software program for controlling the information handling system to process an information file to produce qualitative measurements of multiple attributes of the information file, and to generate an iconic graph with preselected dimensions for visually representing and displaying the qualitative measurements on the display device.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present application is a continuation of U.S. Application Ser. No.08/671,142 (now issued U.S. Pat. No. 5,831,631) entitled Method andApparatus for Improved Information Visualization, filed Jun. 27, 1996 bythe inventors of this application and commonly assigned to the assigneeof the present application.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to the field of information handlingsystems. More specifically, the present invention is related to a methodand apparatus for providing a visual representation of multiple,quantifiable attributes of an information record on an informationhandling system display.

2. Background Information

The ability to convert information into digital format, and to storethat information for later use has made the libraries of the worldavailable to individuals for on-line searching and retrieval. It hasalso made it possible to send messages, in voice or text, that can beconverted to digital text formats and stored in electronic mailboxes foran individual to retrieve and review. With the proper informationhandling system, such as a desk top computer, network computer, laptopcomputer, or wireless device hooked up to a network, such as theinternet or world wide web, or a local area network, an individual canaccess and view any or all of this information.

Unfortunately, the vast quantity of information that an individual canretrieve with an electronic search, or receive in an electronic mailboxon an average day, can render the value of such search or electronicmail useless due to information overload. That is, with so muchinformation, how do you determine which document or mail to read first,or which ones to delete without reading? Therefore, it has beendesirable to come up with new methods and apparatus to present to theuser a visual indication of the information that is of greatest interestto the recipient.

Typical solutions to the problem have included: (1) Using only the filename, as in a directory listing. This often fails to convey adequateinformation and often misleads the user concerning the contents of thedocument. (2) Using the document title. Many titles fail to adequatelydescribe the contents of their documents, and often are so long thatthey must be truncated to fit, thereby cutting off information necessaryto determine the contents of the document. (3) Using keywords. Adequatekeywords to fully characterize a document takes a lot of space. Besidestaking a lot of space, the first words of a document often fail tosummarize a document's contents. (4) Using a textual summary of thedocument. Besides taking a lot of space, the writing of the summary istypically a manual process by a human being, and as such, could only bedone for a small selection of information records.

Information handling systems loaded with standard software applicationprograms such as electronic mail (e-mail) and search engines andGraphical User Interfaces (GUIs) have made possible the collection anddisplay of certain characteristics of information records. In the caseof e-mail, it is known to display in text format such information as theauthor of the message, the date the information record or document wascreated, the size of the message, and a subject as provided by theauthor. It is also known that an icon, such as a representation of anenvelope as shown in FIG. 1 can be associated with the text informationto show if the message has been viewed, or the urgency that the authorplaced on the message. However, as will be explained in greater detailbelow, such icons as are known in the art do not provide forquantitative representations of multiple attributes associated with adocument that would allow the recipient to visually determine if themessage is worth reading sooner than another message as the title andurgency selected by the author does not always reflect the interest orthe urgency that the recipient places on the same message. In addition,the representation of a document by its title and other textualidentification has the disadvantage of taking large amounts of space inthe visual field while failing to properly identify the contents of thedocument or information record in many cases. This problem is applicableto any collection of documents or information records, including thepresentation of electronic document search results.

In the case of data base searches, it is known to provide lists ofdocuments that relate to certain topics that the requester defined forthe search. One full text search system, as shown in FIG. 2, providesfor the use of tilebars in which graphic information is presented alongwith the text information. A program on an information handling systemgenerates a "tilebar" that aids visualization of the size of thedocuments by varying the length of the tilebar. It also visuallydisplays the distribution of the search terms within the document. Insuch a system, the length and width of each tilebar varies depending onthe number of search terms used, in that for each term searched, thereis one corresponding layer of the tilebar, and the length of the tilebarvaries with the length of the document. While such a system ofvisualization is an improvement over prior systems of displaying theoutput of a document search, such a search system still requires greateranalysis on the part of the viewer, thereby requiring more time todetermine how important a specific document is in relation to all theother documents. Also, the tilebar is a large graphic, taking upvaluable display screen area. Nor does such a system provide forquantifiable measurement of multiple attributes of the document itself,rather, such systems display measurements of one document against allthe other documents retrieved in a search.

As shown in FIG. 8, it is known that an application program runningunder Microsoft Windows® 3.11 operating system could produce a three bargraph 800 to indicate the current level of resource usage (bars 801,803, 805) of the host computer. When the application was running, thethree bar graphs were annotated and labeled. When the application wasminimized, the icon for the application consisted of the same three barsin the same three colors, but since the graph then resided in a 16×16bit icon, no labels or annotation were visible. The result was a compactrepresentation of the state of a computer system. However, this hasnever been applied to document visualization.

Thus, it is desirable to be able to provide an improved visualrepresentation of multiple attributes of a document, as well as a systemand method of providing a visual representation of multiple,quantifiable attributes of a document on an information handling systemdisplay.

SUMMARY

The purpose of the present invention is to provide a method and anapparatus for displaying multiple qualitative measurements of aninformation file comprising an information handling system with displaymeans for displaying information, program means for processing aninformation file to produce qualitative measurements of multipleattributes of the information file, and means for generating an iconicgraph of preselected dimensions wherein the iconic graph is arepresentation of the qualitative measurements of the multipleattributes of the information file.

The iconic graph provides a new, compact or small form factor visualrepresentation that allows a person to quickly perceive certainqualitative attributes of an electronic document so as to visually sortand classify a large number of documents based upon the iconic graphassociated with the documents. In addition, the present inventionprovides for a system and method for generating and displaying iconicgraphs of various document metrics or attributes that can be used tosupplement or replace other representations of documents currently inuse. While described as being associated with the attributes of adocument, this invention is not limited to any particular media type,such as text, rather, it can be used to represent the attributes of anyinformation record. In addition, a single iconic graph could be used torepresent multiple documents, or collections of documents or informationrecords.

As is known in the art of Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs), such as thatprovided with the Windows® version 3.1 operating system from MicrosoftCorporation, the size of an icon may be adjusted or scaled at any timeby a user from a small size, of approximately 16 pixels by 16 pixels,where the label for the graph axes is hidden until brought out onto thedisplay by a user moving a pointer onto the icon, to something larger inwhich the labels are visible on the axis at all times. While thisscaling has been applied generally to bitmaps of icons, the same skillscould be used to scale the iconic graph of the present invention, thatmay exist as a bitmap in some embodiments, or in some other form as theuser elects to implement. The attributes of the document represented bythe iconic graph can be selected by a user or by a default convention.As in standard GUI, the iconic graph can be placed where ever the userdesires, or remain as placed on a display by a default setting. Inaccordance with this invention, the iconic graph can also be used toreplace or be displayed in combination with other visual representationsin existing applications.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

The present invention will be described by way of exemplary embodiments,but not limitations, illustrated in the accompanying drawings in whichlike references denote similar elements, and in which:

FIG. 1 shows a portion of a GUI display for an electronic mail system;

FIG. 2 shows a portion of a GUI display for a document search report;

FIG. 3 shows a block diagram of an information handling system;

FIG. 4 shows an example of an embodiment of a version of the iconicgraph;

FIG. 5 shows an alternative embodiment of the iconic graph; and

FIGS. 6A and 6B show examples of a version of the iconic incorporatedinto a portion of a GUI display for an electronic mail system;

FIG. 7 shows an outline of a program to implement an embodiment of theiconic graph; and

FIG. 8 shows a graph known in the art to show resource utilization of ahost computer.

DESCRIPTION

In the following description, various aspects of the present inventionwill be described. For purposes of explanation, specific numbers,materials and configurations are set forth in order to provide athorough understanding of the present invention. However, it will alsobe apparent to one skilled in the art that the present invention may bepracticed without the specific details. In other instances, well knownfeatures are omitted or simplified in order not to obscure the presentinvention.

Parts of the description will be presented in terms of operationsperformed by an information handling system or computer system undersoftware control consistent with the manner commonly employed by thoseskilled in the art to convey the substance of their work to othersskilled in the art. As well understood by those skilled in the art,these quantities take the form of electrical, magnetic, or opticalsignals capable of being stored, transferred, combined, and otherwisemanipulated through mechanical and electrical components of theinformation handling system or computer system; and the term informationhandling system or computer system includes general purpose as well asspecial purpose data processing machines, systems, and the like, thatare standalone, adjunct or embedded.

Various operations will be described as multiple discrete steps in turnin a manner that is most helpful in understanding the present invention.However, the order of description should not be construed as to implythat these operations are necessarily order dependent, in particular,the order of presentation.

The iconic graph of the present invention can be used to supplementother representations of a document, or groups of documents orinformation records, such as a title, to assist a user to understand thecontent of the document. For example, by seeing such an iconic graphbeside the title of its associated document, the user may be able tomake an informed decision about whether to open the document, or to passup this document in favor of another document of greater interest.

As is well known, graphs are used to represent quantities. In additionto quantities, the present invention also graphs quantities ofqualities. For clarification, "quantitative" generally means a numericalvalue, whereas a "quality" means a property of an item. As used herein,"qualitative" measurements of attributes means that an iconic graph candisplay the quantities (a numeric value) of N qualities (or properties),where N is any number. For some qualities, particularly abstractqualities such as, for example, "model railroading," it may be requiredto derive or compute the quantity of the quality.

The present invention provides a method and system for a user to specifythe attributes of an information document, and an iconic graph torepresent the quantitative measurements of those attributes for displayon a GUI in an information handling system. In a one embodiment of thepresent invention, a user specifies a set of multiple attributes thatare important to that user in making a determination to open up adocument for viewing. The user preferably inputs the specific attributesdesired, or selects from a menu of attributes supplied with the GUIprogram that is the front end for the user's particular application suchas electronic mail, or a full text document search engine, such as thatprovided by Corporate® Intelligence for US patents, or something on theinternet such as that provided by Yahoo!™. The user may then also selectthe graph format of the icon to be displayed from a predefined selectionthat comes with the GUI, or use a default iconic graph provided by theGUI. Each information file or document that is subsequently received andprocessed by the application program, electronic mail or search engine,or any program that processes information, will have associated with itthe user selected, or program selected iconic graph that will visuallyrepresent the multiple quantified attributes of that document orcollection of documents.

Referring now to FIG. 1, there is shown an example of a GUI display 100for an electronic mail application (e-mail) that processes electronicdigital documents addressed to the recipient in a manner well known inthe art. In such a known system, the documents are typically displayedin the order in which they are received and in this example consist ofcolumns to display various fields of each information record such asicons 101, authors 103, the date the message was created or received105, an indication of the size of the document 107, and a title orsubject 109 provided by the author of the document. The icons (111, 113,115, 117) in column 101 may themselves convey some information such asthe message has been opened 111, or that the message is unopened (113,115, 117). In addition, the icon may represent the urgency placed on themessage by the author. Icon 117 represents that the message is urgent byits color or some other visible sign such as blinking.

FIG. 2 represents another GUI display 200 for a full text searchapplication known in the art. Here the user can input some searchselection criteria (201, 203, 205), and the GUI displays tilebars 206consisting of bars of various sizes (207a, 209a, 211a, 213a) incombination with their respective titles (207b, 209b, 211b, 213b). Thetilebars 206 are comprised of layers (215, 217, 219) that represent thedistribution of the search terms (201, 203, 205) within a specificdocument. The height 221 of the tilebar increases with each layer thatis added to represent each search term, and the length 223 of thetilebar increases or decreases to represent the relative size of thedocument in comparison to the other documents that are retrieved.

Such known systems as shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 fail to provide compactvisualization icons that display multiple quantified attributes of thedocument they represent.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating an information handling system300 of commercially available components that is suitable for practicingand displaying the GUIs of FIGS. 1 and 2, and can display an embodimentof the present invention described herein. It should be appreciated thatthe illustrated information handling system 300 is merely an example ofa system and that other information handling system configurations maybe used for practicing the present invention. Any device with a display301, at least one central processing unit (CPU) 303 that communicatesdirectly or indirectly with a memory 305, an input device 307, and adata port 309 to receive data, and the appropriate software to processthe data and display it on display 301 is sufficient. Such a system 300may be a desktop computer, a mobile computer, a handheld device, or apersonal digital assistant (PDA). It may also be a network computer inwhich very little memory or no memory is included with or co-locatedwith CPU 303, rather, the memory is accessed via data port 309 over anetwork connected to another information handling device (not shown) viacommunication channel 311 to provide the memory. In addition, dataaccess port 309 could be a modem, an Ethernet card, or any connector ordevice for receiving data via communication channel 311, be it a cable,cellular, or satellite transmission channel. Input device 307 could be amouse, a keyboard, a pen or touch screen. Display 301 could be a monitoror TV. An exemplary embodiment for the information handling device forpracticing this invention is a Dell Dimension brand XPS P133c desktopcomputer with a 133 MHz Intel Pentium® processor, 16 MB EDO RAM, a 1 GBhard disk, keyboard, mouse, and an NEC MultiSync brand display. The DellDimension computer is equipped with a modem and an Ethernet card foraccess to both wide area networks (WAN) and local area networks, as wellas to the internet. The following software programs are loaded on thecomputer to provide the identified functions: Windows® 3.1 operatingsystems software from Microsoft; cc:Mail version 2.2 software from Lotusfor electronic mail, Lexis-Nexis Research Software version 4.0 fromLexis-Nexis for documents searches, and Netscape Navigator version 2.0software from Netscape Communication Corporation for searching theinternet.

Memory 305 stores an electronic mail program, or e-mail, such as cc:Mailby Lotus® that includes a GUI for displaying information regardinge-mail that has been received, in a format similar to that shown in FIG.1.

Turning now to FIG. 4, there is shown an embodiment of the presentinvention, an iconic graph 400 that visually displays qualitativemeasurements or metrics of four selected attributes of a document. Thisparticular format could be used to graph eight metrics, by adding thefour diagonals. In this example, the four attributes or metrics arevisually represented by an Up projection 401, a Right projection 403, aLeft projection 407, and a Down projection 409. The length of eachprojection (401, 403, 407, 409) provides a visualization of the specificmetrics associated with the specific projection. Depending upon theprogram used to implement this invention, the attributes to bequantified as well as the form of the graph to be displayed may bepreselected, or they may be selectable by a user from a predefined menuof attributes or graph formats in a manner well known in the art, orthey may be completely definable by a user input field such as term sets1, 2, and 3 (201, 203, 205) as is shown FIG. 2 and in table 411. Suchattributes of the document may be the size of the document, or the levelof the grammar used in the document, or it may be very user specificsuch as "how strongly does this document relate to computer technology,""fly fishing," or "model railroading". Such qualitative measurements maybe done via programs stored in memory 307. For example, if level of thegrammar used in a document was a selected criteria, the program couldaccess a standard grammar checker, such as Microsoft Word grammarchecker found in Microsoft Word 6.0 which checks a document, andprovides a quantitative measurement of the grammar used in the document,such as grade level or readability level. For the other metrics, variousmethods now existing, or as may be developed, assign qualitativeevaluations of certain attributes to a document. The values for "modelrailroading," for example, can be generated by any number of means wellknown in Information Retrieval literature. An obvious way would be touse the result of a "Vector Similarity Function" (as described inSalton, McGill, Introduction to Modern Information Retrieval,McGraw-Hill Publishing Company, 1983, which is considered the primaryreference for all Information Retrieval work, and is incorporated hereinby reference) between the document and some other document known todiscuss "model railroading". The evaluations, or qualitative metrics, bywhatever means they are produced, are coded in a form such as a numberwhich may be stored with the document or stored separately. Theresulting qualitative attributes can be represented graphically in anyform as shown by way of example in FIGS. 4 and 5. The present inventionis not limited to graphs of the form of FIGS. 4 and 5, rather there isno limit as to what visual representation the graph portion of theiconic graph may take.

In the one embodiment, when the iconic graphic representation is shownin conjunction with related text, such as a title as in FIGS. 6A and 6B,the graph will have a size on the order of the related text. When shownin situations without any related text, the choice of size for theiconic graph will usually be chosen large enough to effectively conveyits contents while being small enough to allow a usefully large numberof files to be represented. This sizing of the iconic graph (scaling upor down) can be accomplished in any manner as is well know in the GUIart. The present invention includes all uses of an iconic graph ofnumeric document attributes or metrics to represent or describe a singledocument.

Where the iconic graph is small (on the order of 16×16 pixels ("pictureelements")), scale values, and enumeration's used to construct the graphcan't be effectively displayed on the iconic graph itself. In some casesa single letter or number may identify an enumeration (not shown).However, in such a case the meanings of the axes, scale values, andenumeration's will be available to the user through some other mechanismas is typically done today, such as placing a pointer on the iconicgraph, which causes the GUI to display the hidden text, as is shown inFIG. 6B, or to display a table 501 shown in FIG. 5. In an alternativeembodiment, the information handling system may provide some other wayof communicating this information such as by an audio message explainingthe meaning of the axes, scale values and enumeration's alone, or incombination with the hidden text, either automatically or under controlof the user. With repeated use, the user will preferably maintain anunderstanding of the axes, scale values, and enumeration's in his or hermind, or will adjust the size of the icon as is known in today's GUI toenable the text to be displayed with the axis of icon graph.

Turning now to FIG. 5, there is shown another exemplary embodiment ofthe present invention, an iconic graph 500 that visually represents fivemetrics defined in table 501. As explained above, table 501 wouldnormally be hidden on the display until brought fourth by user commandsuch as a certain key stroke or by placing the cursor over the iconicgraph.

FIG. 6A represents an example of the iconic graph 500 of the presentinvention as it might appear in a listing of new e-mail message. Theexuberance of the author made the title 601 useless. However, a glanceat iconic graph 500 shows that the content of the message has multiple,qualitative attributes that are of interest to the recipient. Inaddition to table 501 to display the attributes, the use of a balloon603 (FIG. 6B) as is known in the art can be used to identify thespecific metrics.

Turning now to FIG. 7, there is shown the outline of one program 700 toimplement and display an iconic graph of the present invention. Uponstarting the program 701, a user will generally be requested for inputon the selection criteria and the form of the graph to be generated. Inan alternative, the program may present a pull down menu of options toselect, or these may be preset by default. The program then is then runin background (such as in an e-mail system) or is used directly (as in adocument search) to receive information file(s), and to process thefile(s) to produce the qualitative measurements 703. The program wouldthen apply the qualitative measurements to the selected form of thegraph to generate the iconic graph representing the qualitativemeasurements 705. The program would then display the iconic graph on adisplay 707. A skilled programmer could add to these steps to provideadditional functions or features as he or she desires.

While the iconic graph of the present invention has been shown anddescribed as representing the attributes of a single document orinformation file, it is not to be so limited. The iconic graph canrepresent the attributes of multiple documents, or collection ofdocuments such as one iconic graph to represent a summation of a searchresult, or the attributes of all the documents received by a user'se-mail system, or all the documents found at a particular web site onthe internet or intranet.

These iconic graphs can be used in modern 2D computer display systems,such as Windows file and directory lists, temporarily or permanentlyreplacing the file object's usual icon. While the graphicalrepresentation has been described as a 2D entity, the present inventionis not so limited, and can be included in both 2D and 3D presentations.In 3D presentations the iconic graph will typically be applied to someflat surface in the 3D picture, but it may also be found floating in(virtual) space or applied to the surface of a non-flat object.

Characteristics of the graph, such as color and texturing, will bechosen to enhance the user's visualization and understanding of thegraph contents.

Thus, a method and apparatus for improved visualization of multiplequalitative attributes of an information file has been described. Whilethe method and apparatus of the present invention has been described interms of the above illustrated embodiments, those skilled in the artwill recognize that the invention is not limited to the embodimentsdescribed. The present invention can be practiced with modification andalteration within the spirit and scope of the appended claims. Thedescription is thus to be regarded as illustrative instead ofrestrictive on the present invention.

What is claimed is:
 1. An apparatus for displaying multiple qualitativemeasurements of one or more information files comprising:an informationhandling system with display means for displaying information, programmeans which, when executed by the information handling system, processeach of the one or more information files to produce qualitativemeasurements of multiple attributes of the one or more informationfiles, and means for generating an icon substantially comprised of aniconic graph for each of the one or more information files, wherein theiconic graph is a representation of the qualitative measurements of themultiple attributes of the respective information file.
 2. The apparatusof claim 1, wherein the multiple attributes are selectable by a user. 3.The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the attributes are identified on theiconic graph.
 4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the attributes areidentified in a file associated with the visual representation.
 5. Theapparatus of claim 4, wherein the visual representation is displayed ona display of an information handling system, and the file of attributesis only displayed under control of a user.
 6. The apparatus of claim 1wherein each qualitative attribute includes a descriptor associatedtherewith.
 7. The apparatus of claim 6 wherein each descriptor isdisplayed as part of the icon.
 8. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein theattributes to be displayed are selectable by a user from a menu ofattributes.
 9. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the iconic graphcontains a graph representing the attributes of a single informationrecord.
 10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the format of the graph isselectable by a user.
 11. The apparatus of claim 1 further includingmeans for communicating a description of each attribute of the iconicgraph to a user.
 12. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein each iconic graphis employed by the information handling system as a pointer to therespective information file.
 13. An apparatus for displaying multiplequalitative measurements of an information file comprising:aninformation handling system with a display device for displayinginformation, a program that, when executed by the information handlingsystem, controls the information handling system to process aninformation file to produce qualitative measurements of multipleattributes of the information file, and generates an icon for theinformation file that is substantially comprised of an iconic graph ofpreselected dimensions that quantitatively represents the qualitativemeasurements of the multiple attributes of the information file.
 14. Theapparatus of claim 13, wherein the multiple attributes are selectable bya user.
 15. The apparatus of claim 13 including a program forcommunicating a description of each attribute of the iconic graph to auser.
 16. An apparatus for displaying multiple qualitative measurementsof an information file comprising:an information file, an informationhandling system with a display device, a software program forcontrolling the information handling device to process the informationfile to produce qualitative measurements of multiple attributes of theinformation file, and for generating an iconic graph with scaleabledimensions for visually representing the qualitative measurements, andfor causing the information handling system to display the iconic graphon the display device.
 17. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein theinformation handling device includes input means for a user to input themultiple attributes of the information file to be measured.
 18. Theapparatus of claim 16 wherein the information handling system accessesthe software program and or the information file over a network.
 19. Theapparatus of claim 16 wherein the information file is a single document.20. The apparatus of claim 16 wherein the information file is more thanone document.
 21. The apparatus of claim 16 wherein the information fileis a data base.
 22. A method in a computer system for displaying avisual representation of multiple, quantifiable attributes of one ormore information files, the computer system having a display device, themethod comprising:analyzing each of the one or more information files toproduce multiple qualitative measurements of attributes associated witheach of the information files, generating an icon substantiallycomprised of an iconic graph wherein the iconic graph quantifiablyrepresents the multiple qualitative measurements of the attributes, anddisplaying the one or more icons corresponding to each of the one ormore information files on the display device.
 23. The method of claim22, wherein the iconic graph is displayed in combination with additionalattributes of the information file displayed in text format.
 24. Themethod of claim 22 including the step of receiving the informationrecord over a network.
 25. A storage medium having stored thereon aplurality of executable instructions which, when executed, implement aninformation visualization service to generate an icon substantiallycomprised of an iconic graph for each of one or more information filesquantitatively denoting one or more of a plurality of qualitativeattributes of each of the one or more information files.
 26. The storagemedium of claim 25, wherein the information visualization serviceincludes a measurement function to measure one or more qualitativeattributes of each of the one or more information files.
 27. The storagemedium of claim 25, wherein the iconic graph generated by theinformation visualization service is utilized by a host system as apointer to each of the one or more information files.
 28. An informationhandling system employing a graphical user interface (GUI) comprising anone or more icons, substantially comprised of an iconic graph,associated with each of one or more information files, wherein theiconic graph is substantially comprised of quantitative representationsof a corresponding one or more qualitative attributes of an associatedinformation file.
 29. The iconic graph of claim 28, wherein the one ormore graphical representations include one of a bar chart, a line chart,a spider chart, and the like, wherein each marker within the graphicalrepresentation denotes one quantitative measurement of a qualitativeattribute.
 30. The iconic graph of claim 28, wherein a host systemutilizes the iconic graph as a pointer to the information file withwhich it is associated.